COMPREHENSION

>>  1 Clarissa is told of Septimus's death and images him throwing himself from a window;

       2 She reflects on life and death;

       3 She imagines the meeting between Septimus and Sir William Bradshaw;

       4 She thinks life can be difficult, but she has the support of her husband;

       5 She contrasts her easy and successful life with the death and suffering of other people;

       6 She thinks of her happiness at Bourton and of the pleasure one derives from the activities of        day-to-day life;

       7 She walks to the window;

       8 She parts the curtains and sees an old lady looking at her;

       9 She watches the old ladt going to bed;

       10 The sky is not as Clarissa had imagined it;

       11 She thinks of Septimus again but does not pity him;

       12 She decides to go back to her party.

INTERPRETATION

>> When she heard of Septimus's death she was so impressed that she could imagine Septimus's death and her body seemed to burn.

>> According to Clarissa death is an attempt to communicate, a resistance to the feelings.

>> According to Clarissa Sir William Bradshaw was a great doctor, extremely polite to women but capable of some indescribable outrage, he is a powerful man.

>> The incapacity to live all life with serenity struggles Clarissa.

>> She realizes that death is inevitable.

>> The tow quotations are linked to Clarissa's moods because firstly she sees death as an escape from life, a solution to the sadness of life, instead the second quotation is linked to Clarissa's mood because she realizes that death is inevitable and all mankind had to die.

>> There are lot of repetitions and conjunctions because the text is made up of Clarissa's thoughts.

ANALYSIS

This is an extract from Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway". The extract is about the feelings which Clarissa felt after the Septimus's suicide news. Firstly she walked away from her guests and decided  tostay alone in a side room, there she reflects on death and life and on the contrast between her successul life and suffering of other people. Then she parts the curtains and sees an old lady who goes to bed. According to me this lady could represent her future: too old to enjoy parties and go to bed early while the others have fun and live alone. Then she realizes that death is inevitable and nobody can escape from it.

The extract is composed of 7 paragraph, in each one there's different topics: in the first one there's Clarissa's reaction to Septimus's suicide, in the second there's her reflection on life, in the third one she reflects on why he had committed suicide, in the fourth one she thinks on the possible meeting among Mr Bradshaw and Septimus, in the fifth one she tells the reader what struggles her: the incapacity of life, in the sixth she remembers how happy she was when she was on Bourton and in the last paragraph she describes the old lady and the sky which is not as she imagined it.

There's lot of conjunctions and repetitions because this text is made up of Clarissa's thoughts so it is       like a speech where repetitions and conjunctions are used a lot. The character is created through dialogue her behaviour and her thoughts and feelings. The narrator is in 3^rd person, onniscient, it coincides with the main character and it is intrusive.